Senator: Proposed bill wouldn't force schools to 'out' LGBTQ students

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Senator Konni Burton is pictured March 11, 2015.

>>Keep going to see other bills you need to know about before the Texas legislature convenes in Austin.

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News

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Senator Konni Burton is pictured March 11, 2015.

>>Keep going to see other bills you need to know about before the Texas legislature convenes in Austin.

Senator Konni Burton is pictured March 11, 2015.

>>Keep going to see other bills you need to know about before the Texas legislature convenes in Austin.

Photo: Tom Reel, San Antonio Express-News

Senator: Proposed bill wouldn't force schools to 'out' LGBTQ students

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Despite concern from LGBTQ activists, a Texas state senator's office says a bill addressing parents' right to full disclosure of school information would not force schools to "out" students who identify as sexual minorities, her chief of staff said.

The two-page bill states that a parent is entitled to all of a school district's written records about their child's "general physical, psychological or emotional well-being (except information related to child abuse). An attempt by a school employee to conceal or encourage a child to withhold information is grounds for discipline, the bill states.

Equality Texas, a nonprofit organization that works to secure equal rights for sexual minorities through legislation and education, on Friday issued a statement opposing Burton's bill.

"Until kids are not kicked out of their house for being gay or transgender, and until kids are not being beaten by parents for being gay or transgender, we owe it to kids to protect them," said the statement from Steven M. Rudman, Equality Texas board chairman. "We believe Sen. Burton's legislation would essentially destroy protected communications between a student and an educator...."

Some also worry that the bill would also put lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) Texas youth at risk of being placed in so-called "reparative therapy," which is based upon the premise that homosexuality is a mental health problem, according to the progressive website TheNewCivilRightsMovement.com.

"That is an unfortunate interpretation," said Elliott Griffin, the senator's chief of staff, on Friday.

Nothing in the bill should be construed to mean that a child could be forced into reparative therapy, he said. "I have no idea why they would draw that conclusion."

Burton's proposed bill came about in response to the Fort Worth school district issuing new guidelines about transgender students, which triggered an uproar over parents' loss of access to complete information, Elliott said.

There was also concern with how the guidelines were developed at the administrative level, without involving the local school board or getting parental input, Griffin said.

As Burton noted in an op-ed piece she wrote in May, she was "appalled" that the school district would be willing to share information with a third party if it was deemed necessary but kept parents on a "need to know" basis.

Nonetheless, Griffin emphasized Friday that Burton's bill does not include a duty to report information unless a parent asks for it.

Texas already has legislation that outlines a parent's right to have information about their children, and the proposed bill would clarify and make stronger those existing statutes, Elliott said.

SB 242 "streamlines" the legislation, he said, by consolidating in one place existing provisions that now appear in several different parts of Chapter 26 of the Texas Education Code.

If a student talks to a teacher or counselor about being gay or identifying as some other sexual minority, Burton's proposed bill is silent on how the teacher would be required to respond, he said.

"We wouldn't presume to tell an individual teacher what to do," Elliott said. "If you (as a parent) call and ask about your child, you should have the expectation that the school isn't going to withhold valuable information. It's existing state law."